Rudd

It would seem that the DWP has a private revolving door reserved for Tory Politicians. Esther McVey has gone, and is replaced by the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

Difficult to get a handle on her, but a quick glance at the Website They Work For You which collates and tracks the voting record of MP’s, her voting record on Welfare issues is concerning.

It is maybe better to remember that Amber Rudd jumped from her position as Home Secretary during the Windrush scandal where a “hostile environment” was encouraged and promoted by her predecessor Theresa May, left people stateless, and with no means to resolve their situation.

That hostile environment also applies(d) to those who are disabled. Frances Ryan at The Guardian wrote this earlier this year:

“Take the social security system, itself defined by an increasingly “hostile environment”. That May is said to have encouraged Britain to adopt a “deport first, appeal later” ethos for immigrants will sound terrifyingly familiar to anyone going through the benefits assessment system – a system marked by “remove people’s income first, appeal later”. (To date, two-thirds of appeals are won by claimants.)

In recent years, politicians have proudly promoted the reformed benefit system as fairly reaching the “really disabled”, all the while overseeing assessments that are so faulty people with Down’s syndrome are asked when they “caught it”.

Even the appeal system is rigged against the person applying for help. Official figures this month showed that legal aid cuts mean disabled people appealing their benefit rejections are denied legal support in a staggering 99% of cases.”

Ms Rudd’s record and attitude toward the disabled, immigrants, public spending, and her decimation of the Police is well recorded.

“The welfare reforms being proposed by the Government are one of the most exciting aspects of the Coalition’s agenda. Restructuring the welfare system so that it is based on sound principles will have a profound impact on our ability to get people off benefits and into work. That is why I particularly welcome;

The statement that people will always be better off in work than on benefits.

The Universal Credit so transitions between welfare and work will be made simpler and fairer so people will no longer be trapped on benefits from fear of negotiating such complicated and bureaucratic system.

The implementation of sensible marginal deduction rates to reward and incentivise people taking on more work whilst on benefits, rather than punishing them with de facto higher rates of taxation than top rate taxpayers.”

We have to remember that this new Secretary of State at the DWP has inherited a system that is being described by the UN in a 24 page excoriating report and which is published here.

This document should shame any Government, but not the Tory run DWP at Westminster.

“He called for the elimination of the five-week delay in receiving benefits under the universal credit system, which has plunged many into destitution. Flaws in its design and implementation harmed claimants’ mental health, finances and work prospects, and benefits sanctions were “harsh and arbitrary”. Vulnerable claimants “struggled to survive”, he said.

The ministers he met – including Esther McVey, who was the work and pensions secretary until Thursday,( 15/11/18) when she resigned over the Brexit deal – were almost entirely dismissive of criticisms of welfare changes and universal credit, he said. Instead, they described critics as political saboteurs or said they failed to understand how it worked.”

It would appear that hard –nosed ideology which has characterised the Conservative Party anywhere in the UK, have by design caused the total chaos & mess that our country is now in.

The New Statesman also writes about the dysfunctional DWP and the appointment of Rudd.

Children when being questioned about some misdemeanour used to say tearfully “ Please miss a big boy did it and ran away”. Well, IDS, Cameron, Crabbe, Gauke and a big girl did exactly that…

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